George Takei, whose own family was forcibly interned during World War II, is a cast member of (and key inspiration for) the new musical "Allegiance."
/ Old Globe Theatre

The Old Globe Theatre has signed on to “Allegiance,” a new musical about the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Globe will produce a developmental workshop of the piece in New York this summer, with an eye toward eventually staging the musical’s world premiere in San Diego.

“We have made a commitment to produce the play at the Globe,” said Louis G. Spisto, the theater’s CEO/executive producer. “Depending on what we learn from the reading, (‘Allegiance’) could be produced as soon as the summer of 2012.”

“Allegiance” is by composer-lyricist-writer Jay Kuo and co-writer Lorenzo Thione. The show is Kuo’s fourth musical, and both he and Thione also have some Broadway producing credits. The director is the veteran Stafford Arima (off-Broadway’s “Altar Boyz”), who has worked previously at the Globe (“Ace”) and San Diego Rep (“The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea”).

Among its cast members is George Takei, best-known for playing Lt. Sulu on the original “Star Trek” TV series. Takei and his family were among the tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans (most of them from California) who were interned after war broke out in 1941. His chance meeting with Kuo and Thione three years ago in New York proved a key inspiration for the creation of “Allegiance.”

"I’ve always felt that (the subject of the internment) was too little known and certainly too little understood by Americans," Takei said in a Union-Tribune interview about the show last summer. "It happened to Japanese-Americans, but it also happened to all Americans, to the Constitution."

Cast members for previous “Allegiance” workshops also have included Lea Salonga, a 1991 Tony-winner for “Miss Saigon,” and the Broadway veteran Telly Leung, as well as Allie Trimm, a high-school junior from Escondido who has previous credits in two Broadway shows. (Salonga and Leung are expected to participate in the New York workshop, but it’s not certain whether Trimm will continue with the work.)

Last summer, the “Allegiance” team hosted an invitation-only “screening” — a filmed version of an earlier reading in New York — at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. That event was held to showcase the work to potential donors; attendees heard such musical selections as the lyrical "I Haven't Got a Prayer." (The "Allegiance" Facebook page has links to numerous performance videos of the musical's songs.)

The Globe’s workshop in New York, scheduled for July 27-28, likewise will be an industry-only event.

Next year marks the 70th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, a measure signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 that authorized sending Japanese-Americans to internment camps due to security fears.

More than 100,000 people of Japanese descent — most of them, like Takei, U.S. citizens living on the West Coast — were packed off to camps around the country, although many had never set foot in Japan. (A law signed by President Reagan in 1988 apologized for that action and granted reparations to surviving internees.)

“Allegiance,” set in one of those camps, centers on a love story between a young internee and the daughter of the camp’s director. Takei plays an older version of the internee decades after the war.

“It is a very special story, (and) one that has not be told in this form,” said Spisto, who stressed that the project is still in its early stages. He added that because of the lasting impact of internment on families in this part of the country, “I think it’s very important to start this play in California.”